Consumer responses to pharmaceutical-company-sponsored disease information websites and DTC branded websites

Abstract

Purpose – This study aims to investigate pharmaceutical company-sponsored disease information websites that are created and operated by pharmaceutical companies. Without clear indication of the site ownership, these websites look like non-advertising health information websites. Consumers’ responses to pharmaceutical company-sponsored disease information websites were examined in comparison to their responses to typical direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug brand websites. Design/methodology/approach – A field experiment was conducted with a representative sample of US adults. Study subjects were randomly assigned to one of three live websites: pharmaceutical company-sponsored disease information we..